America’s biggest pension fund, gets a dose of its own medicine

Investor, heal thyself

The last of our series of profiles on financial institutions looks at America’s biggest pension fund, which is taking a stiff dose of its own medicine

Sep 16th 2010 | SACRAMENTO | From The Economist print edition

FOR years, underperforming companies have lived in fear of a tongue-lashing from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), which has led a crusade to improve the quality of corporate governance in America. It is therefore somewhat ironic that CalPERS now faces criticism for losing billions of dollars during the downturn and for failing to run a tight ship. Anne Stausboll, the fund’s chief executive, and Joseph Dear, its chief investment officer, are working overtime to repair the damage done to the pension behemoth’s assets and its reputation during their predecessors’ reign.

Much is riding on their efforts, which were reviewed at a meeting of the fund’s board in Sacramento this week. CalPERS provides health and retirement benefits to over 1.6m beneficiaries, including doctors, firemen and policemen. If it cannot achieve the investment returns on its $200 billion portfolio needed to help pay for workers’ benefits, then these may have to be cut or the state’s taxpayers could end up picking up the bill. Given that California is already grappling with a $19 billion budget deficit, that is an alarming prospect.

Admittedly, CalPERS is not the only public pension fund in America nursing a nasty hangover. But its woes are striking because they stem from racy investment bets, poor risk management and a lax attitude towards potential conflicts of interest at an institution that was supposed to be a model of modern fund management.

Consider those investments first. CalPERS loaded up on real estate, private equity and other illiquid assets in the years before the crisis. These boosted the fund’s performance, helping it grow to $250 billion by mid-2007. But when the meltdown began their prices promptly plummeted. As a result, CalPERS’s returns were -23% in its financial year to the end of June 2009 (see chart). Returns for the median public pension fund with more than $5 billion of assets were -19%, according to Wilshire Associates, an investment-consulting firm. In particular, the fund made too many bets on risky properties, including a $500m investment in a vast housing complex in Manhattan, since written off.

CalPERS has also been caught up in a furore over the activities of “placement agents”, who help financial firms win investing assignments from big pension funds in return for a fee. Some critics have claimed agents create a “pay-to-play” culture in which outside firms win contracts based on whom they know rather than on their merits—a charge that agents dispute.

In May California’s attorney-general filed a lawsuit against Alfred Villalobos, a former CalPERS board member, accusing him of improperly using his contacts at the fund to help other firms win business from it. Mr Villalobos has denied any wrongdoing, as has Fred Buenrostro, a former CalPERS chief executive who was also named in the suit. “The attorney-general should not have filed this case because Mr Villalobos has always acted appropriately,” says Neal Stephens, Mr Villalobos’s lawyer.

They’ve cashed in their CHiPs

Last year CalPERS changed its policy to force external money-managers to disclose whether they are using placement agents to solicit business and how much they are paying them. It has also taken other long-overdue steps to bolster transparency, including banning staff from accepting gifts from business partners.

Such actions are part of a broader set of initiatives designed to mark a fresh start at CalPERS. Among other things, the fund has imposed tougher controls on the use of leverage, cut almost $100m from the $1.2 billion it pays each year to outside managers and reduced its exposure to troublesome real estate. “I cannot overstate our determination to make this a new day here,” says Mr Dear, who joined CalPERS in March 2009. Ms Stausboll was named chief executive in January that year.

California risking

Mr Dear also seems determined to hit the 7.75% annual rate of return that CalPERS says it needs to achieve to meet its commitments, though the target could change as the result of an internal review. In its most recent financial year, the fund made a return of over 11%, but some observers reckon it will struggle to meet its target in future without taking more risks.

CalPERS can point to the fact that over the past 20 years it has earned an average annual return of 7.9%. But returns from conventional assets such as stocks and bonds are unlikely to be as helpful as they once were. That explains why, in spite of recent history, Mr Dear remains keen to pour more money into riskier assets such as emerging-market stocks, private-equity funds and big infrastructure projects. In June, CalPERS agreed to pay up to £106m ($156m) for a stake of almost 13% in Britain’s Gatwick airport, marking its first big direct investment in infrastructure.

Given CalPERS’s long-term investing horizon, such bold bets could pay off. But Mr Dear says he knows the fund also needs to get better at making short-term tweaks to its portfolio if the need arises. Some critics think that CalPERS should be lowering its sights instead. David Crane, who advises California’s governor on economic policy, says the 7.75% goal is “wildly unrealistic” and reckons the target should be closer to 6%. “These guys are swinging for the fences and we, the taxpayers, will bear all of the risk,” he cautions.

Mr Crane is not the only one who is concerned. At an open meeting of the board’s investment committee on September 13th, the treasurer of a small Californian utility made a plea for CalPERS to reduce volatility in its portfolio. “It looks more like we’re gambling,” he chided, pointing to the 14% of the fund’s assets that are still invested in private equity. The snag is that if CalPERS takes less risk, generous public-pension schemes will almost certainly have to be renegotiated. That is one governance test that California’s politicians and unions will be loth to take.